Dear folks – there were some major network outages last week as you probably know. We received a message from TSU IT that upgrades are in progress to address these reliability issues today, and though eLearn was out a bit this morning it is back up now.

If you wrote to me last week and have not yet received a reply, please re-send your question – it does appear that some messages did not get through even after access was restored, and therefore I am not ignoring you, I just never received your question [smile].

If you like, for the remainder of the semester please feel free to use the following gmail address in addition to my tnstate.edu address: streams.tsu@gmail.com.

I apologize for the interruptions in campus course access, and like you, I anticipate that the upgrades in progress will address these issues.

Note in particular the points about why it doesn’t make sense for CDO to report to CIO. Just because computers house data does not mean that all organizational thought about data/information/knowledge should be filtered through the IT department. This is very fundamental. PS: the author, a research analyst for GovLoop, has an MPA…
What’s the Role of the Chief Data Officer? Blog post from GovLoop

This is a friendly reminder that according to the syllabus you have till tomorrow evening (Monday 9/9/2013) to complete the Module 1 Quiz. Remember you can take the quiz up to twice before the deadline, but you will receive the average of those attempts. You do not have to take it twice – it is up to you – but you must at least take it once.

Modules open up on Mondays as shown on the syllabus. So Module 2 opens up tomorrow AM, so those of you who are ready to move on can get started on that.

Please take note that you have another quiz this week, this time for Module 2 – quiz is due by next Monday 9/16 11:59pm. Normally you wouldn’t have two quiz weeks in a row – but since I can’t have a quiz the very first week because of flux in registration for the course, I have to set it up this way. So week 1 of Module 2 is a quiz, and week 2 of Module 2 is the discussion. The Discussion is a higher-level activity than the quiz – that is, thanks to having read and studied for the quiz in week 1, I anticipate that you will be able to have a more informed and high-quality exchange in the discussion in week 2.

You may be looking ahead and see assignments called “Reading Reflections” in some of the future modules on the syllabus. Please be reassured that these are very structured but short assignments that are designed to be done in a week – you do not need advance time to prepare them (they should require a similar amount of time to a well-done job on a Discussion).

Hope you enjoyed the Week 1 materials – now it is time to leave the esoteric “big picture” ideas of “What is Information?” and start delving in a bit more to practicalities with “Systems.” In the last Module of the course we will take a step back again to the big picture – then turning to the role of government policy in technology industry development.

It won’t be long till your Case Analysis proposal is due (see syllabus for date). It is not too early to read the guideline for the Proposal and for the Case Analysis itself – all available to you already – and start thinking ahead to what approach you want to propose for your project.

For some modules in our course this semester, a specific discussion is assigned for the module with its own discussion area, topics and instructions – see the syllabus and discussion guideline in eLearn. Those assigned discussions are graded.

However, some students may *want* to discuss course content even when a formal, evaluated discussion is not assigned – so I have created an “Open Discussion” area which is informal, optional and ungraded. Feel free to post there if you like. Just don’t be alarmed if classmates do not necessarily respond. Some may, others may want to focus only on the graded work and not this open opportunity. It will not influence people’s grades one way or another. This Open Discussion is in the Discussions area, below the “Meeting” discussion.

When the time does come for graded discussions per the syllabus, just be sure to use the specific discussion area allocated for that module. In those graded discussion you will be in smaller discussion groups (via the magic of eLearn), it will not be a “free for all” among the entire class of 21 people, and you must follow the formal instructions provided.

I will check the Open Discussion area periodically as I am able and respond as needed, but if you need a specific time-sensitive answer about something from me still please use email.

If you have “followed” the PADM 6150 course blog at any time in the past, you will continue to get updates about the course until you unsubscribe. I cannot unsubscribe you – you need to do this yourself.

IF YOU FOLLOWED THE BLOG BY ENTERING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: If you are receiving unwanted updates to this blog via email, please simply click on the Manage Subscriptions link at the bottom of the email which says “Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions” – you will then be able to unfollow the blog at the page which opens up (as well as any others you subscribed to using that email address). It only takes a minute.

Note that if you subscribed to more than one course blog using different email addresses you will have to repeat this process using an email about a post to the other blog as well.

IF YOU HAVE A WORDPRESS ACCOUNT: On the blog front page, on the left hand side under my picture, you will see the statement “Follow via email” and a link in parenthesis (manage). Click on the manage link and proceed to unsubscribe yourself. Voilà, no more course updates from this blog! You can see a screenshot of this below:

If the orientation videos aren’t loading properly at the website, or if you want to pick and choose which you watch rather than watching them all in series, just go to this YouTube channel and you can watch them there instead.

Also if you prefer to just read about how to use the eLearn tools you can read the basic help files. That is also the link which is shown as Student Help in the upper right hand corner of the eLearn window when you are logged in. Those help files are generic in the sense that they tell you how to use the tools (dropbox, email, quizzes, and so forth) but they don’t show you how to access the tools at the start, because that is customized in different universities’ implementations of the learning management system (the LMS is Desire2Learn, of which our TSU implementation is “eLearn”). But it is easy to find the eLearn tools – they are shown as a strip of navigation links across the blue bar that is always at the top when you are logged into eLearn (Course Home | Content | etc. – the only difference in their names from the generic help files is that “Assessments” is where the quizzes are.)

I think that by using the youtube videos and the help files you will be able to start using the system easily. For login issues specifically, review the information at CIT’s site carefully first and if you can’t resolve your issue contact the Help Desk.

There is one required textbook for this class in Fall 2013 semester, taught by Dr. Meg Streams; additional readings will be assigned inside eLearn. You need to obtain the textbook in the edition specified in the first week of this course, and preferably have it in hand at the beginning of the course. Not having a textbook is not an accepted excuse for falling behind or not completing assignments on time. Textbooks are a necessary input to graduate education, and part of the costs of seeking a degree.

You will have multiple options for obtaining this textbook. You should be able to purchase it at the Avon Williams Campus bookstore, you may want to call to make sure they still have it in stock before making a special trip to pick it up. You may also pursue other avenues for obtaining a used or new copy of the textbook if you can obtain it quickly enough, possibly at a lower price: online clearinghouses can give you different price options from vendors . At the time I write this post, there are many copies available for sale online in the range of 30 to 45 dollars (rentals cheaper but not much). You may also rent an ebook, for example from CourseSmart. However be careful because the price for rental of an ebook may sometimes come close or be even more than the price of buying a used or even new hard copy from another vendor, so buyer beware! Make sure you understand the conditions of any rental or ebook before you buy. Technical issues with an ebook will not be accepted as an excuse for late work or falling behind.

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